As part of the curated portion of the 2016 Fringe Festival, FringeArts presents South African theater artist Brett Bailey's adaptation of Verdi's opera Macbeth, performed by the performance group Third World Bunfight.

Presented in collaboration with Opera Philadelphia, the production is set in the Democratic Republic of Congo and features a South African cast, examining post-colonial central Africa through an imaginative appropriation of Shakespeare's tale. The story follows Congolese warlord General Macbeth and his ambitious wife, who murder the king and wreak havoc in the war-torn and corrupt landscape of multinational corporations and militias. Music modeled on Verdi is infused with African rhythmic elements and percussion by Belgian composer Fabrizio Cassol, and sung in Italian with English subtitles.

Pre-show talks will be held prior to each performance, at no charge to ticketholders. See below for a schedule of pre-show events.

The Congo: From Leopold to KabilaA pre-show talk with Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, professor of African, African American, and diaspora studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History, with an introduction by Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula. September 24, 2016 6 p.m.